The Visit
by dontbesojaded
Summary: Sam and Diane pay a visit to an old friend (*cough* its Coach *cough*) after getting engaged. There is almost-equal amounts of angst/drama and fluff/cuteness. BFEOSAD gets all the credit for story idea! Reviews are lovely.


_A/N: Alright so this is for BFEOSAD because she came up with this wonderful idea. I don't know if I did it justice but, hey, I tried! _

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_"Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was." _  
_-Brief Encounter_

**The Visit **

It was blustery and grey outside, dark clouds hovered low and promised rain even though warm undercurrents in the wind whispered spring. Diane pulled her sweater around her a little bit tighter and shivered slightly as she entered the cemetery. The evening light was fuzzy and muted through the clouds, and for a moment, when the wind rushing through the tall elms stilled, the phrase "Rest in Peace" had never seemed more accurate.

"It's, uh, over this way." Sam nearly whispered, as if hesitant to wake the dead. He took her hand and led the way towards the back of the grave yard. She decided against telling him that she already knew where it was. She'd visited it only once before, just after coming back from Europe. She could explain how, in the immediate weeks after quitting her alias as a European party girl, her life had seemed to have tumbled into oblivion. She'd been alone and confused and scared as hell, yet somehow coming here had helped. Maybe she would tell him that later; but for now she just squeezed his hand and let him lead her towards Coach's grave.

Ernie Pantusso was buried next to his wife on a tiny plot on the far side of Evergreen Cemetery. The inscription on his marble headstone read:_ Ernie "Coach" Pantusso: Loving father, husband and friend._ When they came in sight of it Sam swore under his breath and ducked to his right, coming up with a single daisy from a large bouquet that belonged to _Elsa Clack: Loving wife_.

"Sam!" Diane admonished in a harsh whisper, "Put that back!"

"We forgot flowers! Besides, shes not gonna tell anybody."

Diane looked mildly horrified at his gallows humour, but she took the flower from Sam and placed it carefully on Coach's grave. The daisy was in full bloom and so large that it obscured the neat letters in the stone. Now his headstone seemed to say:  
Ern usso  
Lovi nd friend

"Hello, Coach. It's been a long time." She said quietly, and then looked expectantly up at Sam.

He said nothing. Sam was looking off into the trees that lined the cemetery, his eyes far away.

"Hey." Diane said softly, tugging his hand gently as if to pull him back from wherever his mind had wandered, "Aren't you going to say hello to the Coach?"

"Uh, I don't-this is stupid, Diane, why did we come here?"

"You know why we came. He would want to know!"

"Its not like he can, you know, hear us."

Diane frowned up at him with that mask of disappointment and incomprehension that he knew so well. Sam shook his head and sighed, "Fine, fine. Coach, me and Diane-"

"Diane and I. " Diane interrupted quietly. Sam didn't even blink, maybe he'd even said "Diane and me" accidentally-on-purpose to see if she would catch it and correct him. He supposed he'd been doing things to annoy Diane for so long now that it had become a default setting. But instead of lecturing him on proper grammar, a strange mixture of elation and exhilaration over took Diane's features, and she seemed to consider her next words carefully. Sam braced for her to say something along the lines of: _Sam and I are to be joined as one in holy matrimony for the rest of eternity. _

But she only said, with a quiet sort of reverence, "Coach...we're getting married." Simple. Just like Coach would have liked it.

She turned towards him, her lips teasing up into a slow grin, and repeated it, "We're getting married."

"I know, sweetheart. You know, Coach knows, everyone at the bar knows, who_ doesn't_ know?" Sam smiled back at her and released her hand to wrap his arm around her waist.

"I don't know." She responded in a far off voice that implied she hadn't really heard his question.

He could have laughed at her then, she was so caught up in the reality of their impending marriage that she'd gone starry-eyed and stupid. But instead he just chuckled and kissed her cheek. She was so intelligent and confident and brave, yet deep down she was hiding a naive little girl. Occasionally she would let that little girl come out and play. These were the times when she would blush dumbly at things he said to her, when she forgot to correct his grammar, when she would stand quietly for a few minutes and just let something wash over her.

Diane tilted her head to rest against his shoulder and sighed, and Sam could see their future laid out before him like a roadmap. He could see them coming to this spot in a few years with young children who would have his hair and their mommy's eyes. He would tell them about Coach and how he had gotten his nickname when daddy had been a baseball player. Diane would fill in the gaps in his story with complicated and eloquently-spoken sentences, and he and the kids would smile and nod even if they didn't understand because they all loved to watch mommy talk.

His daughter would be the only girl he ever used a line on again, and he would tell her that her eyes reminded him of the Vermont sky, and he didn't think anything could be that beautiful. She would giggle and blush, and Diane would smile knowingly at him over her head.

He would teach his son to pitch in the backyard, and would regale him with stories from his past, but make him swear not to follow in his father's beer-soaked footsteps. When they got older the kids would laugh over how their mom had once been a waitress, and they would blush when their parents still kissed in public. And one day, he and Diane would end-up in a cemetary much like this one, side by side much like they were now. At this moment, with her pressed against his side; eternity with her next to him didn't seem a gloomy thought at all.

She stirred slightly and pulled away,"Oh, Sam! I forgot the invitation in the car."

"The invitation to what?"

"Our wedding."

"You made invitations? Diane, we've been engaged for three days!"

"No, of course not," she smiled and shook her head," I just made one for Coach. I thought he might like to have it."

"Sweetheart..."

She put her hands on his chest and cut him off with a feather light kiss, "I'll be back in a moment."

She sashayed past headstones with an easy grace that he knew was only a part time deal (he'd seen her dance) and Sam turned back to Coach's marble marker with a sigh, "She's crazy. You know that?"

He glanced quickly around to make sure he hadn't been heard, Diane was just passing the last line of trees towards where his car was parked. Then he dropped into a crouch and ran a hand absentmindedly over his chin, "Ah, I don't know, Coach, I still think this is weird, you know, talking to a..." He trailed off, unaware of the hypocrisy in his previous statement.

An unexpected dry laugh escaped him and he looked back at the marble rectangle, "I got her though, Coach. Diane. Yeah, finally. For good this time." He glanced over towards where the lady in question was picking her way back towards him. A gust of wind picked up suddenly, making her scarf flutter in the wind and her hair fly around her face. He had a sudden urge to catch her and hold on before she blew away, because if the wind blew hard enough in the right direction it seemed very likely that she would. "Yeah, at least I think so."

He looked at Coach's grave in silence as she drew closer, remembering (as people often do at graves) the last time he'd seen him.

It had just been them at the bar, closing up after an exceptionally busy night. Only been a month or so had passed since he had returned from Europe, he had still been angry with Diane, frustrated with himself and so absorbed in his own problems that he hadn't noticed Coach was moving slower that night. Or maybe he had, but he'd pushed the thought away because it scared him.

"You coming with me, Sammy?" Coach had asked from the door as he pulled on his coat (slowly, he had been moving so damn _slowly_).

Sam had looked up from behind the bar and shook his head, "Nah. I've got things to do here, Coach. I'll see you later."

He hadn't had anything to do. He'd just wanted to be alone with his anger and his bar. But as he watched Coach make his way up the stairs his heart had done an odd flip-flop and there was a sensation of things rushing by too fast, as if a remote control had gotten stuck on fast-foward and there was no rewind button.

He didn't believe in any of Carla's voodoo-premonition crap, but maybe now it was safe to say that he had somehow _known_ in that moment, as he'd looked at Coach walking up the stairs and thought, "I should have gone with him." He went home to bed much later and quickly forgot that anything might be amiss until the next morning when Carla called him. And then he would never cease to wonder if anything might have been different if he'd just followed Coach up those concrete steps.

And now, Diane was behind him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder and the feeling was back. He was going to lose her. Maybe not in the same way as the Coach but he would lose her all the same. Images of the children they might have were replaced by images of him alone. Fleetingly, he wondered if he was destined to lose what he loved most. Then he wondered if maybe he was crazy and paranoid and it was some side effect of all his previous drinking come back to haunt him.

He stood up and pulled her against him, tight. Because its hard to imagine the pain of losing someone when they're pressed against you, their lips murmuring something into your chest and their hair brushing against your skin. The ache in his heart subsided to a twinge that he accredited to meaningless paranoia.

"Are you alright?" She asked, pulling away.

"Yeah, yeah. I just...love you."

She snorted and touched his cheek, "Sam Malone you've gone soft."

He chuckled, "Yeah, maybe. Probably. Did you find the invitation?"

She shook her head. The clouds had cleared slightly, revealing the tiniest hint of a setting sun. Then the heavens opened and the most literal definition of "liquid sunshine" to ever occur poured down on them.

"Oh!" Diane cried out as the water drenched her sweater and turned her skin to ice, but she was laughing.

"We should go."

Diane nodded and bent towards the Coach's headstone. She pressed a kiss into her hand and let her fingers linger over the cool marble as tenderly as if it was Coach's weathered cheek.

"We'll come back again, Coach." she promised, and then quietly under her breath, "Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow."

She said it so somberly, so bittersweetly, that he wondered if maybe she wasn't only speaking to the Coach. He wondered if maybe she didn't feel it too, the air of finality that hung over everything they were doing. Would this be the last time they visited Coach together? Their last kiss? Their last night together? Their last?

Sam's jaw had inadvertently clenched. _You're just a stupid, paranoid, ex-drunk Sam Malone. Get yourself together, _he mentally reprimanded himself, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling. Diane was looking at him a little oddly but he didn't notice, he had glanced back down at where Coach lay. He felt heat behind his eyes and if he hadn't been Sam Malone he would have thought maybe he was going to cry. God, Diane was right, he'd turned into a sap.

"Aren't you coming with me?" Diane called from where she now stood a few feet away, dripping and lovely in her wet and ruined clothes.

"Yeah. I'm coming with you." He said under his breath, draping an arm over her shoulders. The rain had slowed and the evening had becoming foggy, a mist obscured the rest of the graveyard. They walked off into it together.

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_Thoughts? _


End file.
